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Thursday, February 16, 2017

Zoë's language skills

Today was a pretty good potty day for Zoë. She likes to read books while she sits on the potty and today one of our books we had on hand was a Russian-English picture dictionary, which we've read a billion times before today but for some reason she decided today that Russian is wrong.

When she points to a picture I name the object in both Russian and English, usually varying which I say first because I'm not very good at continuity.

So, for example, if she pointed to a picture of a cucumber, I'd say, "Огурец."

"Uh-uh," Zoë would say, shaking her head.

"Cucumber," I'd say.

"Yeah," she'd say, and then point to a pumpkin.

"Tыква."

"Uh-uh."

"Pumpkin."

"Yeah."

"Кукуруза."

"Noooo! Mop!" ("mop" means "stop").

"Corn."

"Yeah."

We went through the whole book that way. It was so funny because she's never gotten upset about hearing Russian before. She was getting quite upset about it, which I was fine with because, in my opinion, the more times a day she tells me to "mop," the better.

When we're driving, she likes to be the only one to talk. Specifically, she likes to play her own little version of Marco-Polo with the people in the front seat:

"Dada!"

"Zoë!"

"Dada!"

"Zoë!"

"Dadaaaaa!"

"Zooooë!"

You get the picture, I'm sure. Heaven forbid any other passenger tries to join in. Yesterday we were all driving in the van and she was yelling "Dada!" at the top of her lungs but we were trying to also do some scripture study so we could put the kids straight to bed when we arrived home. The poor kids were trying to recite their memorized scriptures while Zoë was screaming, "No! Mop!" at them (and occasionally spitting at them as loudly as she could, raspberry-style).

They all have names now, though. Zoë calls them Aich-o, Mimi, and—as of yesterday—Benja.

Benjamin burst inside from the backyard yesterday to announce that Zoë was saying his name (but that she would only yell it into the soccer cones/pylons). So far this has mostly been true, but it's progress. He's no longer just a scream of anguish.

"These are my siblings: Aich-o, Mimi, and Arrrrrgh!"

Though I'd totally get it if she decided to stick with "Arrrrrgh" because somedays that's what I feel like going with, too!

Here's what her vocabulary looks like:

fish

cracker

banana

apple

num-nums

ucky

snack

cereal

popcorn

bowl

bow (as in, for her hair)

teeth (just "ee")

pee

poo

diaper (just "di")

shoe

Elmo

baby

chair

Jesus

yes/yeah

no

hi

bye

up

go

stop

side (as in, "outside" or "other side")

nurse

more

help

door

sheep

duck

bee (meaning "bee" and "every other bug")

bear

car

beep

pray

my/mine (this one gets used a lot)

ball

She knows how to say a lot of words (I'm sure I'm missing a few in this list) but she will still often scream/grunt to get her point across rather than say what she's thinking—because shouldn't we just know?! We're constantly reminding her to "use her words."